AHC: An "Indonesian" Empire Taking Role of Japan

The challenge is having a powerful empire with territory of East Indies (or Majapahit) which would be a great power in the Pacific, and antagonistic to Europe.

Anyone interested?
Thanks in advance!
 
How about the sultanate of Sulu managing to slowly expand into Borneo while staving off the colonial exploitation of the European nations? I already got several ideas on how to do it, but I fear that it would be ASB.
 
The only possible candidates for this would be either Javanese or Sundanese kingdom (Majapahit or Pajajaran), since they were the ones that were advanced, populous, and homogenous enough to be the best Japan-analogue of the region. But since they were not remotely as isolated as Japan, they will likely become less successful at it, being geographically more vulnerable to European economic imperialism.

Prevent Paregreg Civil War. It set a terrible precedent for continuous military competition for kingship between royal children that seriously exhausted and de-consolidated the Majapahit empire. Had a lasting stability reigned over instead, Java would've had become a more advanced and burgeoning urban society, in comparable level with East Asian Sinicized countries. They won't stay thalassocratic hegemon (and thus, Hindus) permanently, but a plain chance to rebound later on.
 

scholar

Banned
They're certainly in a remote nowhere compared to Indonesia region, which has been a cross road for international trade.
That's a problem here.

Japan was far away from the most lucrative of trading centers and the few colonies established there were not profitable and often just barely breaking even leading to a number of countries abandoning Japan to its own institutions. They could afford to be independent far away from important European interests.

Indonesia cannot say the same. The Dutch, French, British, Portuguese, and Spanish will not allow them to maintain independence. Further the Indonesin states lack a common cultural and linguistic heritage, the closest one could come to one would be with Majapahit which even then was little more than a federation of different states under one dominating entity.
 
That's a problem here.

Japan was far away from the most lucrative of trading centers and the few colonies established there were not profitable and often just barely breaking even leading to a number of countries abandoning Japan to its own institutions. They could afford to be independent far away from important European interests.

Indonesia cannot say the same. The Dutch, French, British, Portuguese, and Spanish will not allow them to maintain independence. Further the Indonesin states lack a common cultural and linguistic heritage, the closest one could come to one would be with Majapahit which even then was little more than a federation of different states under one dominating entity.


Which is why they won't be as successful or as big. But with a continuing Majapahit cohesivity in at least Javanese Java alone, we can afford a Siam at the worst case. A Majapahit without annual civil war between the royal princes could've certainly grown to become Japan-level cohesive and stable and getting all advantages associated with such. They won't likely to hold Malacca strait forever, but even Mataram grew quickly to become southern Indonesia hegemon as a newly emerging power under its early sultans with influence stretching across the Java Sea. A continuous stable Javanese state with additional centuries of experience of stability can only do better. When the walanda companies arrive at East Indies, they will going to play by the rules different from OTL. Later, they can at least have the chance to become a South East Asian Japan. They won't be as big, not that they will need to since Javanese would be much closer to fuel and raw material sources. And hopefully they won't be as xenophobic and thus as cruel an imperialist power as OTL Japan with much more experience of living next to many more foreign nations.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
can continuous stable Javanese state be achieved ?


there are a lot of incentive for northern javanese cities to rebel. it economic interest lay on trade with malacca, makassar and moluccas. they become islamic while the rest of Java still hindu, and later hold modernist version of islam, while other javanese traditionalist islam.


within 600 years period, there surely period of weak king and instability, with divergent economic incentive and culture, it would be impossible to prevent rebellion and maintain continous unity.
 
can continuous stable Javanese state be achieved ?


there are a lot of incentive for northern javanese cities to rebel. it economic interest lay on trade with malacca, makassar and moluccas. they become islamic while the rest of Java still hindu, and later hold modernist version of islam, while other javanese traditionalist islam.


within 600 years period, there surely period of weak king and instability, with divergent economic incentive and culture, it would be impossible to prevent rebellion and maintain continous unity.

We're talking about Surabaya(sort-of)-centered Majapahit. Not Yogyakarta(sort-of too)-centered Mataram. Not saying an absence of rebellion in more then 2 centuries would be possible. Islamization process will be quite a fever to go through. Civil War for kingship is certainly preventable though, let alone becoming a routine everytime the reigning king dies.
 
What if something happened to Europe before the age of colonization? Worse Mongol invasion with chaos due influx of East European refugees?

Or maybe prevent the Crusade so the rush to the Far East is delayed?
 
Actually, what is needed is population increase, the more population increases the more an area becomes culturally united except if there are geographical boundaries.
 
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